of ambassadors should reside and by their votes settle all international disputes. In 1625 Hugo Grotius, perceiving that such settlements could not be made except upon some basis of previously accepted rules and principles, gave to the world his great work, "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," the first complete treatise on the Law of Nations; and to this he added the proposal of "some kind of a body in whose assemblies the quarrels of each one might be terminated by the judgment of others not interested," and that "means be sought to constrain the parties to agree to reasonable conditions."

In like manner, in 1634, a notable device for maintaining peace, called the "Great Design," was invented by the Duke of Sully and attributed to Henry IV of France as the plan of that monarch for ending the long struggle between the House of Hapsburg and the rest of Europe; but it is now established that it was the scheme of Sully himself, who as a fallen minister hoped by this means to procure his own recall to the administration of the affairs of his country. All

Europe, according to this plan, was to be organized into fifteen States, which should together constitute one Christian Republic, in which wars were to be prevented by a General Council, composed of forty delegates, meeting annually in the most central cities of the different countries in rotation.

During the Congress of Utrecht, in 1713, the Abbé de St. Pierre elaborated his "Project of Perpetual Peace," to which more particular reference will be made in discussing the provisions of the League of Nations proposed at Paris, of which it is an almost perfect prototype. The Napoleonic Wars also brought forth plans for international peace, the most conspicuous effort being that of Immanuel Kant, in 1796, in his essay on "Eternal Peace," in which the solution offered by this Prussian philosopher was that all States should become republican in form; a condition, as he thought, which would enable them by some kind of general federation to unite their forces for the preservation of peace.

It is not surprising, therefore, that, as a

result of the defeat of the aggressors in the Great War now, as we hope, happily terminated by the united efforts of a group of advanced and liberal nations, these plans, or modifications of them, should again receive attention, and that a general desire should be created for "some kind of body," as Grotius expressed the aspiration, which could prevent the repetition of the experience through which the world has passed.

What was impossible before the Great War, it is believed by many, could be easily accomplished now; and that, therefore, even before a peace is finally concluded, and as an essential part of it and a condition of its perpetuity, a "League of Nations" should be formed.

There are, it is true, wide differences of opinion regarding the objects, the methods, the organization, and the obligations of such a league, varying from the creation of a World State by the federation of the existing nations into one vast political organism including all, both small and great, to a limited compact confined to a few Powers

with no function beyond the peaceable adjudication of differences by an international tribunal without power to enforce its judg

ments.

The occasion is, no doubt, opportune for a thorough discussion of these widely differing plans, and it is timely for their advocates to express their views and support their conceptions by argument; but it is by no means to be taken for granted that any one of these projects, however honestly and earnestly its supporters may believe it should be at once adopted, is either practicable or desirable. The stress of insistence should not be placed upon the means of forcing the acceptance of a particular plan, however meritorious it may be in itself, but upon the intelligent comparison of different plans and a patient examination of their probable effects.

That which needs, first of all, to be emphasized is, that no one Power can expect, or should desire, to impose upon others a system which they do not all heartily approve; and, in the next place, that if any plan is to

be permanent and effective, it must have the support not only of the leading governments but of the great masses of the people whom those governments represent. It is, therefore, greatly to be desired that the public should be fully informed before any decisive step is taken, that nothing should be urged until it is well understood, and that no theorist, however competent and trusted, should be regarded as a trustee of a whole people in a matter of such import and consequence. The true principle that should be invoked for guidance in this matter was well and forcibly enunciated by the President of the United States when, in 1912, in his first electoral campaign, he dwelt upon the value of "common counsel," and, as one of the people, seeking leadership, expressed his attitude regarding public policies in the words: "I am one of those who absolutely reject the trustee theory, the guardianship theory. I have never found a man who knew how to take care of me, and, reasoning from that point out, I conjecture that there isn't any man who knows how to take care of all the